Locking stable flying but not skyriding to pathfinder is stupid

Community General Discussion
1088

I do not 100% like Dragonflying or Dynamic Flying. First in WoD Blizzard thinks they know best, and flying is not fun so lets kick it. Then allot people quit, because no flying and because WoD wasn’t a great expansion. So someone higher up thinks it might be a good idea to have stuff in the game people like and pushes them to put flying back because surprise… many people do love flying.
Then… like a defiant baby they try to figure a way out to still punish us while giving us flying… nah, we can’t just buy it with gold, that would be too easy. So they added a achievement where you have to finish all the content once because that is what people said about WoD “not enough content”.

If you look at the expansions after WoD, they became progressively more anti-flying in setup: In Legion you had one big island where you could fly around which was great. Then in BfA where they split the playing field into two big islands so you have to use a loading screen to move between them and can’t fly all around like back in TBC. Then there was Shadowlands… where someone that really hates flying split the 5 zones up into a own little island. So you can’t fly around for sure and are forced to use flightmasters… just to move between zones.

Dragonflying for me, feels awkward. First off you have to tip the “nose” down incredibly much for the mount to actually starting to gain speed. What is the point, being able to tip the nose all the way up and then use 5 times the flap up when you then have to tip it all the way down to gain energy again? Also the game blocks your sideway movement as long as you are in the air, and often times you have issues lifting off.
I don’t know, it is probably just me but I found Dragonflying and now Dynamic Flight to be really cumbersome and awkward.

Sadly you have to bear with that if you want to fly somewhat faster then normal flight. They could have instead just given us 400% flying, up from the 300%, but then it would be too easy now would it. Why not add a flying type that… while cool and interesting on paper is in some way restrictive and cumbersome at the same time. Giving us 400% normal flying where you could just have fun flying around and maybe take a rest from having to actively do something in the game, can’t have that.

I fully agree with your whole post.

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1089

If you design your game where the loot is the reason a player is in the dungeon, that’s backward from how a game should be designed. Instead, should be designed to be a fun/interesting place to kill monsters, and if you get some cool items, that’s icing on the cake. Those items should not be the driving force of any of your game play (even diablo didn’t used to be loot pinata, and that is a game about farming loot) especially in a game about the adventure.

The entirety of Wow is designed as if each player is trying to get the ring from Frodo, rather than helping him cast that dumb thing into the fires of Mount Doom. Every item on your sheet is The One Ring. Every item you have yet to get is the One Ring. Frodo goes on his adventure to destroy that power.

We sit here playing content ONLY when it gives us that power. Then we expect more new content with stronger power. Blizzard has leaned into all of it, failing to be the Ghandalf of the Party.

Blizzard is more like the Balrog.

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1090

Like heck you say, from the 1st day WoW started up, all I wanted to do is level up and get gear so I could beat the snot out of everything and everyone as fast as I could, the heck with everything else. The story line was just a nice thing there so I didn’t fall asleep while I did it. Other than that, I have always been a loot (leave this word out so I dont get banned) player.

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1091

So use steady flight, or just die and run back to your body. Either way, it’s not really that big of a deal. Certainly not worth all the drama.

1092

Eactly, I recall vanilla being more about the adventure. This lasted a few expansions, but started to fade more and more when players got loot envy. Even now there is the occasional topic about wanting max level gear for the lowest difficulty.

Blizzard catered more and more to loot fanatics, or customers, that had no idea on how bad it would be for the game. Hence why loot is secondary to me over having fun, either solo or with my guild/friends.

Have fun to get loot, don’t get loot to have fun ( paraphrase from Dinotopia: eat to live, don’t live to eat)

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1093

I think it’s a little simpler than that: A lot of the creative force behind the first 3 expansions had left by the time Cata dropped. Cata was the turning point, where the efforts to keep the game as consistent as possible were thrown out the window in favor of liberties they wanted to take.

‘A wild deathwing appears and tears the world asunder! RAWR!’

Um, okey dood. Maybe next time, use phasing so when this expansion is over, I can go back to enjoying the game the way it was BEFORE you upended all these zones to add flavor to one single expansion. So stupid.

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1094

The world and the zones progressed with the story. Nothing wrong with that, and many years later when classic WoW came out everyone could go back and see the old world anyways so really no foul or loss in it anyways. I sure didn’t lose any sleep over the change of the old world maps.

1095

No. The game was significantly altered via increasingly incongruent game changes, to the point where it became unrecognizable to even the most senior of devs. At this point, any game changes or new content is literally two different teams competing for alternating release schedules, throwing whatever they can together via committee to meet the deadlines Blizzard has set.

Whatever isn’t ready by deadline will be shelved for later. Doesn’t matter what it is or who it affects. It’s literally disposable anyway, and the minute new content comes out, even if that one thing was finally fleshed out, it will be replaced by the next set of features for the next expansion.

Literally zero care or effort is put into preserving the game is it is. If you think wow has progression, first of all, it’s a facade. Second of all, this is about the worst way a game could implement progression and still call itself a video game.

Some of us recognize the Grift. Some of us expect a hell of a lot better. It seems you are content with anything they do, even if they released DF twice in a row. Exact same expansion. Just reset, now the cap is 80. Do it all again.

You’d be completely cool with that. Because you have a low bar. These sorts of conversations usually don’t apply to players like you. Not sure why you want to participate. Zero skin in the game.

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1096

Yes, it makes a ton more sense to attach Pathfinder to the so called “superior” flying style.

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1097

In more ways then one, I recall the complaints about heroic dungeons being “too hard” in Cata so they wound up getting nerfed.

While I can agree with dropping Deathwing from those zones post Cata, the changes also made the world something that also changes with time, does not make much sense to have the plaugelands be overrun with scourge if the Lich King is dead, does not make much sense to have Edwin Van Cleef still running the defias after all the “adventurers” that brought back his head… The issue I had here is while some of the changes felt organic, not all of them did (did we REALLY need to turn Westfall into CSI: Azeroth?).

Some might say my bar is low, but all I ask for is new content and, if old content is redone, it is done in a way that feels organic/makes sense based on what has happened in the previous expansions.

1098

You admit you have no skin in the game so why are you barking at the end of your chain for? I happen to have 3 accounts and all have the epic version of the next xpac seems I have a lot of skin in the game, I also have the paid full bore for Diablo 4 and even got the next xpac for it, seems I have a horse in that race as well.

As long as I enjoy a game I pay for it and have every right to say I enjoy it. I also have every right to disagree with some strange take like you have on the game or current status of it. If you aint buying it then you don’t have a dog in the fight, so to tell other people they dont have zero skin in the game, that is really rich.

1099

Final Fantasy 14 scales you down in level and gear when you run old stuff in a group. They incentivize you to do that with a points currency that you can gain by running them, basically what WoW had before too. Until they got rid of them.
In FF14 you basically can run everything old solo too, you don’t have to run it in a group.

WoW had before points you could earn, with which you could buy some gear. Just like Honor points. Those points where an incentive to run things you would normally not want to run because there is no gear in it for you anymore.

But instead to keep that mechanic and allowing people to “get done” with one character in a not too long time frame, they added Titanforging so that players always have an upgrade in sight, always the carrot in view, so they keep running the same thing over and over. As if a game that has now 13 classes would need such mechanics to keep players playing it.

At least I would, if I am done with gear at the halfway mark of a season, just try some other class. If I ran a melee DPS maybe try out a ranged one, or maybe try a healer or a tank. But because everything takes so much time, you basically have to nolife the game, even if you just want to see stuff from a tanks, healers and dps point of view.

You don’t know how right you are in this.

I remember, in Vanilla my first toon was a Druid which I healed dungeons with. I had the upgraded Dungeon set with her, and never went to raid on her. But if someone of the people I played with needed a healer to run a high level dungeon with, I was healing it. To the point(and past) where there was no loot I would need from the dungeon, I still ran them.
There where people in T2 that ran dungeons, just for funsies or to help friends.

I find, all content is designed around that carrot. In vanilla, there where certain mobs that had special drops on their drop table, like New Hearthglen that dropped the Crusader enchant recipe. I knew a few friends that went there to farm that, and sell on the AH.
Vanilla had many items you could farm like that, nowadays such stuff is locked behind a faction you have to farm rep for.

It is the same with this Season 4 in Dragonflight. One raid is “empowered” which drops increased iLevel, because otherwise why would anyone pay the sub fee and run the raids.
Raiding is sad anyway, once season 2 rolled around no one wanted to run the first raid tier. This is actually the main reason I not want to Raid or run M+, I find it boring to have one raid or 8 dungeons that you run for 6 months strait.

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1100

There are so many mechanics that WoW has seen so far, that came in for one expansion and then where dropped. Good mechanics, why waste allot dev time on such stuff that only lasts for 2 years?

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1101

This isn’t a movie or book. This is a video game. The entire premise lies with… playing the game. ANYTHING ELSE is extra and if you can’t do it right, you leave it out. Period. Not only do you need to preserve the game in it’s OG release state, as long as you expect players to pay for it, continue to play it, as long as you want support in developing it, you have to value what you did vs what you will do.

Has to be: same same. You don’t get to develop nearly 8 years worth of game only to upend it because you want to tell a story in a new way. Again, this is a video game. The entire premise lies it… the game play. Not the story you want to tell. Not in the way you want to tell it.

Go create a Telltale games version of Wow if you want a story driven game. There is a genre for that. The problem I continue to have with ongoing development, is there is no value.

You add deathwing, almighty deathwing, spend 2 years having him drop fire on zones, Day 1 of MoP prepatch, It’s almost like he wasn’t there. Because yeah, Deathwing stopped doing his thing after Cata. But the zones, the OG stories from the game PRIOR to Cata, needed to remain untouched.

That comment wasn’t for you. Clearly some of us will buy anything, regardless of what it is. As long as Blizzard puts it out, they’ll buy it. Those kinds of people really don’t have any skin in the game.

Meaning, it doesn’t matter if you participate in this discussion or not, your opinion isn’t going to determine future games development. The opinion of those wiling to advocate for better game design, will stand some chance at being seen and having an impact. That’s called ‘having skin in the game.’

There is something to gain from ME posting HERE, about THIS. That other guy literally says ‘game is fine, learn to deal with change’ and fails to recognize the ever changing nature of Wow, and how it prevents the game from growing organically.

Could give college lectures on it, if dude wants to participate, but he just wants to say ‘game is good, learn to adapt.’ If game were good, no adaption necessary. Game just plays like game should.

No one says you can’t say you enjoy it. But we aren’t talking about you enjoying the game in this thread. We are talking about a feature representing the epitome of Blizzard lack of meaningful game design.

  1. Skyriding (aka dragon riding with all mounts aka fancy camera controlled flight).

  2. Steady flight.

In case you weren’t aware, suddenly, as of patch day, players are having issues with these features. Some of it stems directly from how they were redesigned.

I can sit here and walk you through it, but I have no desire to if you have no skin in the game. Liking the game means you really don’t have a reason to post here. Having something to say about the skyriding feature, having feedback for devs, being able to understand the conversation being had, far more useful than the rest of your posts.

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1102

Do you actually know what the term noclip means? If druids are your real concern then they shouldnt let them collect in flight form.

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1103

Why is it bad to go afk safely? If someone needs to let their dogs out, or get something for their kids, or go smoke a cig, or go to the bathroom…why is that a problem? Why would anyone even care?

Not everyone wants to play a mini-game while simply traveling from one place to the next.

Dragonriding doesn’t do anything for interaction with the environment. It’s just pushing a few buttons in the sky. It doesn’t make anyone interact with the content more.

If they want people to interact with the new content more, both flight modes would be equally unavailable at first.

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1104

Sadly this is Ion and Co, they are still salty about not getting their way back in WoD. They came up with a new flight system and are trying to shove it down everyone’s throats by any means possible.

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1105

Let me break it down to you.

  1. Some people have medical issues that effect their ability to Skyride, this is true.
  2. Some people have issues that Skyriding in TWW which is linked to the actual story line, but no matter is unlocked right from the start, how ever Steady Flight that has nothing to do with the actual story line at all in TWW has pathfinder linked to it. Which by the way is the most quickest and simplest pathfinder in the history of WoW since its been in it.
  3. Some have a issue with the cool down or casting time in switching between Skyriding Mode and Steady Flying Mode IE the 5 second cast time. Which doesn’t have anything to do with Skyriding itself, its a total different issue within itself. How ever flight related. But people who are upset love to group everything up when trying to fight an argument.

Many of us have beta tested the whole TWW xpac and leveling and unlocking pathfinder and the whole banana when it comes to this and drawn our conclusion just how hard or easy it is, just how much effort or time it takes to unlock, how it relates to the story line, or how each style of flight relates to the story line.

Many of us also know this whole topic is like beating a dead horse that is nothing more than Dust N Bones by now. Now matter what people think is new that they post its the same old stuff that has been posted forever warmed over and served cold. Without even as much as a beer served with it to wash it down.

At this point they may tweek the cast time of the switch between one style to the other style of flight mode. But its very unlikely they are doing a complete over hull of fight in 30 or so days before launch or even thinking about it when they put this much work and effort to convert over 400 flying mounts to Skyriding mounts and putting Skyriding in as part of the actual story line of TWW.

But if they do by some very small chance, party for those of you that feel its a game breaker that flight is the way it is at this moment with pathfinder in it linked to steady flight.

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1106

Some are exaggerating the difference between Flying and Dragonriding as if we should have one of them harder to get.
Imo, no one has given a reasonable explanation why we should get dragonriding but not flying from the start.

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1107

You can use flight paths

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